Good times roll on for Advance Metals with big Victorian gold hits
- Craig Nolan
- Aug 5
- 3 min read
Advance Metals (ASX: AVM) has kept the good times rolling at its Happy Valley prospect within the company’s Myrtleford project in the rich Victorian goldfields, jagging an impressive gold hit of 9.4 metres at 20.2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from a depth of 196.2m, including a stellar 3.2m interval grading 44.2g/t gold from 200.6m.
Drilling at the promising gold project, 290 kilometres northeast of Melbourne, returned grades up to an eye-opening 83.5g/t within the 9.4m stretch. Assay results are from the first diamond hole, part of the company’s recently started drill program targeting extensions to high-grade gold previously unearthed at the site.
Other noteworthy gold assays from the first hole include 2m going 7g/t from 169.1m and a 2.5m hit running at 8.4g/t from 179.8m, which included a solid 0.8m slice grading 25.9g/t from 181.5m.
The head-turning results expand a significant high-grade gold zone in the central portion of the Myrtleford project.
Notably, management says the mineralisation in the first hole appears contiguous with high-grade gold encountered in a previous drill hole within the deposit’s central portion. The previous hit of 7.5m at 47.9g/t was about 25m up-dip from this first hole and followed on from another strong result of 3.2m going 54.7g/t gold in the deposits central portion.
Mineralisation within the latest hole is hosted in a broad zone of laminated and massive quartz veins, with minor sulphides and variable gold grades.
The exceptional gold grades we are now seeing hole after hole are really encouraging. The quality of these results bodes well for the ongoing potential of the Happy Valley prospect and also the broader trend. I am particularly pleased to see that the gold mineralisation appears fairly contiguous, allowing us to effectively target our follow-up exploration programs.
Advance Metals Managing Director Dr Adam McKinnon
The company believes the project has the potential to expand the mineralised system up-dip, down-dip and along strike in both directions. It is planning further drilling to test the full potential of the Happy Valley prospect, comprising its deepest drilling as well as testing shallow targets.
The latest assays add to a string of exceptional drill intersections, including a previous extraordinary interval of 11.5m at 160.4g/t by the former project owner that included a monster 2430g/t gold hit across 0.6m.
Advance’s maiden diamond drilling program kicked off in February at the 418-square-kilometre site, with a laser-focus on Happy Valley in the southeastern portion of the project. The drill program is continuing and assays are pending for an additional two holes, drilled up-dip and along strike from the first hole in the latest campaign.
The Myrtleford project consists of a 13km-long trend of gold mineralisation known as the Happy Valley trend. Management says the current mineralised footprint at Happy Valley represents a small portion of the trend. It plans to test new prospects along strike to the northwest and southeast.
Advance believes much of its ground sits on mineralised structures extending for kilometres which have not been exposed to modern exploration methods.
The overall project has a 45km strike length across historical workings and old gold mines, including the Happy Valley trend, the Twist Creek trend extending for 7km and the Magpie trend running for 16km. It lies within the renowned Lachlan Fold belt, responsible for some of the country’s biggest gold deposits.
The company also holds the highly prospective Beaufort gold project in Victoria’s southwest, 145km west of Melbourne, and has locked in the right to earn up to 100 per cent of the high-grade Guadalupe y Calvo gold-silver project in the northwest Mexican state of Chihuahua.
The Mexican project provides Advance with a non-JORC compliant foreign estimate of more than 100 million ounces silver-equivalent across three projects.
Guadalupe y Calvo comprises a non-JORC compliant foreign estimate of 9.5 million tonnes grading 2.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold-equivalent for 816,000 ounces gold-equivalent or 60.6 million ounces silver-equivalent.
The silver component complements previous foreign estimates of 17.23 million ounces silver-equivalent at its Yoquivo project, about 245km northwest, and 22.4 million ounces silver-equivalent at its Gavilanes project in the state of Durango, bringing total silver-equivalent ounces to more than 100 million.
With the price of both gold and silver leaping by about 29 per cent year-to-date to hover near all-time highs, Advance appears to have chosen wisely in its charged-up pursuit of the two precious metals.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: office@bullsnbears.com.au
